Loss of Moreschi jobs a blow to Made In Italy
The loss of manufacturing jobs at a high-end footwear producer in Vigevano has prompted questions about the Made In Italy strategy.
Footwear group Moreschi began making high-end footwear in Vigevano in 1946 and, at its peak, employed around 300 people there. In February, however, Swiss investment firm Hurley, which has a controlling stake in the shoe company, announced that it would make 59 of the remaining Moreschi employees in Vigevano redundant. Those redundancies have begun to take effect now and by the end of May only around 21 jobs will remain at the site, none of them in shoe production.
Hurley has been quoted in Italian media as saying it wanted to diversify production of Moreschi shoes and make the products in lower-cost locations.
A senior partner at influential consultancy group The European House-Ambrosetti, Flavio Sciuccati, has said Hurley’s decision was exactly the opposite of what should be happening in 2024 to build up the Made In Italy strategy.
He said moving the production of Moreschi shoes away from Italy defied logic and that the time was right to invest more in making products in Italian cities and towns.
Mr Sciuccati said he had hoped national and regional authorities and industry bodies might have been able to intervene in the Moreschi case. He said he feared having to watch Made In Italy “crumble away, piece by piece”.
